epa03377236 An Angolan election helper prepares ballots sheets at a polling station in Luanda, Angola, 31 August 2012. Angolans went to the polls 31 August, with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, already in office for 33 years, asking voters to give him another five years. These will be only the third elections since independence from Portugal in 1975. The last poll was in 2008, and the one before that took place in 1992, when the disputed result sparked a second phase of the southern African nation's lengthy civil war, which ended in 2002. Some nine million citizens are registered to vote. EPA/PAULO NOVAIS